First edition of Cervantes’ fifth book, his only theatrical work published in his lifetime and published the year before his death. Of extraordinary rarity.

Of the 20 to 30 plays Cervantes claimed to have written in the 1580s, only Numancia and Trato de Argel survive. Cervantes may have abandoned active theatrical work in 1587 when he became royal commissary in Andalusia, but he did not give up writing for the theatre. Late in life he revised some of his earlier works, and perhaps wrote some new ones; a year before his death, he published the eight full-length comedies and eight interludes found in this volume. Four of these plays deal with the conflict between Christians and Muslims, a topic of great interest to Cervantes as it relates directly to his captivity in North Africa. In addition, the prologue contains Cervantes’ famous and important survey of contemporary Spanish theatre, with remarks on Lope de Rueda, Navarro, Lope de Vega, and several others.

The entremés, or interludes, “are, on the whole, more original and interesting - even brilliant at times - than the long plays; no other writer in this minor genre surpasses his work. Here we see Cervantes’ comic genius, keen observation of human psychology, sharp sense of satire, great sense of timing, ability to write lively and realistic dialogue (as he does in Don Quixote) and ability to create great characters in a brief space” (Howard Mancing).